18 h. ago Bong Joon Ho: ‘I wish I had Ken Loach’s energy, but I’m just thinking about nap time’

How do you follow up an Oscar winner like Parasite? If you’re the South Korean auteur, you make a sci-fi satire where Robert Pattinson dies over and over again. The director discusses the inspirational Loach and Mike Leigh and why it’s hard being a ‘middle-aged film-maker’We are in the run-up to the release of Bong Joon Ho’s latest, Mickey 17, and Warner Bros has got the Oscar-winning Korean director stashed away in what appears to be some kind of basement storage room, with grey-painted brickwork and exposed wiring. In fact, this room could pass for one of the “gritty and kind of nasty” cargo-container-packed cabins of his film’s spaceship setting.Not that anyone is complaining. Bong, who speaks good English but prefers to conduct interviews via his longtime interpreter Sharon Choi, appears cheerful throughout our conversation, taking occasional sips from a takeaway coffee cup, while dressed in his usual arthouse auteur uniform of a slate-grey blazer over a black T-shirt. He i...

Politics

46 h. ago South Korean police book impeached president for obstructing execution of his arrest warrant

Yoon Suk Yeol is suspected of using presidential security service to block his arrest over failed attempt to impose martial law

Events

47 h. ago South Korea seeks exemption from Trump’s proposed tariff hikes

South Korean officials have asked the Trump administration to exclude their country from U.S. plans to impose aggressive tariffs on trade partners

Politics

2 d. ago Yoon Suk Yeol becomes first sitting South Korean president to go on criminal trial

Impeached president’s lawyers argue he had ‘no intention to paralyse the country’ by imposing martial law last December

Politics

3 d. ago Martial law was Yoon Suk Yeol’s answer to ‘legislative dictatorship’, insurrection trial hears

Lawyers for impeached South Korean president who caused chaos argue that court has no jurisdiction to put him on trial for ‘act of governance’Lawyers for Yoon Suk Yeol have told a court in Seoul that the impeached president declared martial law in late 2024 to prevent the country becoming a “legislative dictatorship” controlled by his political opponents.The claim came as Yoon became the first South Korean president to stand trial in a criminal case, brought over his short-lived declaration of martial law in early December. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago North Korean soldiers convinced they are fighting South Koreans in Ukraine

Two North Korean prisoners of war have revealed that the officers running their battalion told them that South Koreans were operating the drones used in the war against Ukraine

Events

4 d. ago South Korean flight attendants caught taking photos while standing on plane wing

The members of cabin crew are currently under investigation

Events

5 d. ago Gangnam Style fans surprised to learn true meaning of PSY's South Korean song

The South Korean song quickly became an internet sensation after it was uploaded on YouTube in 2012.

Events